Those who know me know that I work for a wonderful company. One of the fringe benefits of my job is that I get to care for the 5 bluebird houses on the grounds. The houses have been up for 5 years and in all but one year we have had at least one nest of bluebirds. But it is a constant struggle with the English sparrows, who will chase the bluebirds out of the nest, even after eggs are laid, and will kill bluebird babies, build their own nest on top of the BB nest, and take over. I mean, these birds will nest in Kroger signs.....why do they need to take my bluebird houses? But I digress.....
In years past the fight consisted of checking the houses several times a day early in the season and ripping out sparrow nests. They are easy to spot, as they are messy, disorganized, and full of trash (some might call it recycling, in this case I call it trash), bits of plastic, yarn wet newspaper, parts of paper cups, theater tickets.....TRASH! Bluebird nests, on the other hand, are neatly constructed of like types of grass and twigs and lined with fluff and tiny feathers.
The idea is to rip out the sparrow nest as soon as they start building, keep ripping, and hope the bluebirds get in in the meantime to start their own nest. There have been days when I have ripped out 4-5 started sparrow nests. I've enlisted the aide of fellow employees to help when I'm not here.
Last year Jen at work gave me an old bluebird book that belonged to her mother. In it the author discussed the sparrow problem and one person's solution. They took a toy snake, rubber in the book, I think, and put it inside the nestbox. The sparrows never came back, but the bluebirds were unphased.
*Cue the lightbulb over my head* Jen had a toy snake, but it's wooden and segmented and wouldn't fit into the box, so we draped it over the top. Lo and behold....the sparrows avoided that box like the plague but the bluebirds and swallows couldn't have cared less. The swallows claimed 1 nest box and were very vigorous about defending it. They would dive bomb humans who came too close and the sparrows gave up. We moved the snake to another house and the sparrows wouldn't come close but the bluebirds just lit on it like it wasn't even there. Bluebirds moved into that box, with the snake on top, and raised a clutch of 5 babies!
This year it worked again, and I actually got to see it unfold. The 5 bluebird babies had just flown over the weekend and on Monday the sparrows thought they'd move into the house. They just started moving their crap, er...junk..., er....scraps in on top of the old bluebird nest! So I ripped the whole thing out at 8am. (The snake was currently in residence on top of the swallow house.) By 11am the sparrows had started another nest........RRIIIIPPPPP - gone. At 3pm, when I went to get the mail, another nest was under construction. At that point I decided to risk the wrath of the swallows and walked over to claim the snake. I came up behind the box thinking, wrongly, that I could sneak in and get the snake and get out like some comando, but nooooo. Mom and dad swallow shot out of the box, circled around behind and began dive bombing my head. It was like a scene from The Birds, but I was laughing so hard I could barely untie the yarn holding the snake to the house.
Finally the snake was free and I carried it back across the lawn to the bluebird house. Before I could get there, the sparrow landed on top with stuff in his beak, ready to start construction again. The little devil! I'll show him! I tied the snake in place and artfully draped him across the top of the box before dropping some mealworms in the bluebird feeder under the house and turning to leave. I had taken no more than 5 steps when I saw the sparrow streak past me. I turned just in time to see him spot the snake and screech to a halt in mid-air before wheeling around to fly off. Honestly, it was like a cartoon bird applying brakes mid-flight WHOA!!!
Almost immediately the bluebird pair returned. The male sat on top of the snake while the female munched on some mealworms underneath. They began their new nest that afternoon and as of today have 3 new eggs.
Haven't seen the sparrow since. He's probably in Canada by now.
And the moral of this story is: Don't mess with a stubborn Irish woman and her snake.
No comments:
Post a Comment